The dreaded poliovirus is almost eradicated from the face of the Earth. But if it is not completely eliminated, it could come roaring back.

In 40 years, the virus could paralyze 10 million people, said Brenda Thornburgh, immediate past president of the Oak Ridge Breakfast Rotary Club, Rotary District 6780 PolioPlus chair and president and co-owner of Galbraith Laboratories Inc., an analytical testing company in Knoxville.

She spoke recently to the Rotary Club of Oak Ridge about her experiences in India for two weeks last February. She had participated in vaccinating children age 5 and under against polio during several National Immunization Days in India.

Thornburgh showed a slide of herself giving two drops of polio vaccine to an open-mouthed child. “The first time I gave two drops to a child, I almost cried,” she said. “I knew I was protecting that child from a devastating, crippling disease.”

She and other Rotarians from around the globe vaccinated kids in slums, schools, farm villages and train stations — sometimes reaching through open train windows or grabbing children getting off the mile-long train.

Most Rotarians donate at least $40 a year to polio eradication in the countries where polio is endemic — Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. “Your $40 donation prevents 67 children from getting polio,” Thornburgh said.

The tragedy for many polio victims in poor countries is that they must live as beggars. They are too crippled to get an education or job.

Thornburgh described a “crawler” in a teashop who begged her for money. With his hips locked in place, his buttocks higher than his back, he walked and lay down like a dog, his feet were bare and his hands wore sandals like mittens to protect against calluses.

The owner of the teashop, she said, takes a portion of the donations to the crippled beggar. In return, the owner gives him a place to sleep and protects him from being robbed, abused or killed.

When Rotarians worldwide first became involved in financially supporting and voluntarily administering vaccinations against polio in 1985, some 300,000 new cases of polio in 122 countries were reported. Last year, there were 650 new cases in 19 countries. And so far this year, only 205 persons in four countries have become infected with the terrible virus — a 99 percent reduction over almost three decades.

India, which has more than a billion people, was declared free of endemic polio for a year last February when Thornburgh visited Delhi and Calcutta. In fact, at the Global Health Summit in Delhi, she saw the last child in India to be infected with the virus.

Bill Sergeant, the Oak Ridger who chaired Rotary’s International PolioPlus Committee from 1994 to

2006, did not live long enough to witness this milestone.

Page 2 of 2 - Some people ask why 33,000 Rotary clubs, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank and more than 25 nations are contributing billions of dollars to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to eliminate a virus now affecting only 200 persons.

“Why should we ‘End Polio Now?’” Thornburgh asked, citing the slogan that helped inspire Rotarians worldwide to raise more than $200 million for polio eradication, to meet the Gates Foundation Challenge.

Together as private sector partners, Rotary International and the Gates Foundation have contributed more than $1 billion to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which has immunized over one billion children since 1988. (To donate, visit www.rotary.org)

Citing CDC projections, Thornburgh said that if Rotary and its partners suddenly stopped vaccinating children against polio in nations where it is endemic, the virus would infect 300,000 persons annually in 10 years … as it did 27 years ago.

“The disease would continue to spread,” Thornburgh said. “It’s a very hardy virus.”

But, she noted, polio is easily eradicated. “We have not had a case in our part of the world for 20 years. The problems we have eradicating it are not science-related.”

She added that lack of sanitation, political reasons and cultural differences contribute to the delay in complete eradication.

“In India, last February, two million Rotarians, other volunteers and health care workers immunized 176 million children age 5 and under,” she said. “That’s half the population of our country.

“We found children to vaccinate in Calcutta’s slums without using GPS and iPads. We walked door to door in dirty sewage. I came home with a rash that extended up my thigh and that took me four months to get rid of — from walking through slum water. But it was worth it because I can heal that.”

The Indian government periodically tests the sewage for poliovirus. If it is found, the people in the area receive polio vaccinations.

In India only 50 percent of the population has clean water and toilets. So many of the children have diarrhea that they are given four to six doses of vaccine over time to ensure they have 100 percent immunity.

Thornburgh called her visit to India a “phenomenal experience, a chance to learn about India and a reminder of how blessed we are in America.”